Technical support systems utilized nowadays makes it difficult for digital service providers (DSPs), and especially for service/technical support centers, to provide efficient (in terms of time and customer satisfaction) technical support services to their customers (also referred to herein as remote users). Though, there is a strong push nowadays toward self-service schemes, yet customer's adoption levels of self-service technologies are rather low. Today's Customer Support model is subject to the following challenges:                The customer environment and support needs have become very complex, which is expected to grow exponentially with the expansion of internet of things (IoT);        Voice-based contact with remote users is typically used for technical and service support around the globe, but is suffers from challenges like communication gaps, diagnosis challenges, limited problem solving rates and customer frustration;        Customer service over the phone is becoming increasingly expensive due to declining average revenue per unit (ARPU); and        Technicians dispatch is becoming very expensive, non-scalable and a source for customers' dissatisfaction.        
Therefore, Service and Product companies focuses nowadays mainly on solving the problems derived from the above challenges i.e., the high cost of support, the low customers' satisfaction, and the limited ability to scale support to the incoming IoT boom.
During the past years there has been a significant change in the way people communicate and use mobile telecom services. There is a noticeable shift from the traditional telecom, voice and SMS, services, to a more data-centric mobile phone experience. The transition from call service provider (CSP) to digital service provider (DSP) has been driven by the mass consumption of cellular data, which is accelerated as long-term evolution (LTE) services are rapidly being deployed, alongside existing 3G and 4G services. In fact, nowadays DSPs conduct more than 80% of their transactions through online digital channels.
Contact centers have also undergone an irreversible evolution over the last decade. The results of the 2015 Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report confirm a continued, dramatic change. Digital contact, in the form of email, web chat, social media, and self-service channels, continues its explosive growth as popular engagement methods, and more and more contact/support centers around the world no longer want to use the traditional vocal telephone communication to communicate with organizations/customers.
The present disclosure provides remote assistance techniques for efficiently identifying technical faults and/or improper equipment setups/configurations, and determining a most likely solution to resolve them. For example, and without being limiting, the techniques disclosed herein can be used in interactive self-assembly applications, installation and troubleshooting of faults in items e.g., self-construction of items/equipment such as furniture, consumer electronics, appliances and even person to person video aided support. An aim of some of the embodiments disclosed herein is to minimize the burden, and the accompanied frustrations, of users/customers attempting to assemble items or trying to rectify/fix faulty equipment/instruments.
The techniques disclosed herein thus aim to provide remote efficient user/client support services, that in many cases can be used to avoid sending high skilled technicians to the user/customer. For example, the techniques disclosed herein are usable for technical support centers of companies, and usable for shortening of the over the phone service time per customer and to reduce the technician dispatch rate.
Some solutions known from the patent literature are briefly described herein below.
International Patent Publication No. WO 2007/066166 discloses a method to process and display control instructions and technical information for an equipment, plant or process in an industrial facility. A software entity may be configured with identities of selected said equipment, plant or processes. The software entity may also retrieve information associated with said equipment, plant or process by means of being so configured. Information may be combined and annotated on a display device to provide control or maintenance instructions. A display device, a computer program and a control system are also described.
International Patent Publication No. WO 2009/036782 describes a virtual community communication system where two or more technicians carry or access an augmented reality (AR)-enhanced apparatus to communicate and exchange, over a LAN or the Internet, information regarding assembly or servicing or maintenance operations performed on complex machinery. Data streams exchange between the peers of the virtual community is performed by means of a centralized server. Various arrangements are presented that can be selected based on the needs of the operation to be performed, such as the number of members of the community and the type of communication equipment. The system is applicable to any application of the virtual community communication system and is optimized for application to industrial machinery.